page_title: Hemel Hempstead
section_title: 18th to mid-20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Hemel Hempstead / History / 18th to mid-20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Gadebridge House
context_page_description: Hemel Hempstead is a historic town, later developed as a new town, in Hertfordshire, England. Located 24 miles northwest of London, it is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population according to the 2001 Census was 81,143, and at the 2011 census was 97,500.
  Developed after the Second World War as a new town, it has existed as a settlement since the 8th century and was granted its town charter by King Henry VIII in 1539. It is part of the district of Dacorum and the Hemel Hempstead constituency. Nearby towns are Watford, St Albans, Hatfield and Berkhamsted.
context_section_description: In the 18th and 19th centuries, Hemel Hempstead was an agricultural market town. Wealthy landowners built a few large country houses in the locality, including The Bury, built in 1790, and Gadebridge House, erected by the noted surgeon and anatomist Sir Astley Cooper in 1811.
  As the Industrial Revolution gained momentum, commercial travel between the Midlands and London increased greatly. Hemel Hempstead was located on a direct route between these areas of industry and commerce and this made it a natural waypoint for trade and travel between the two. Initially the Sparrows Herne Turnpike Road was opened in 1762. It attracted a lot of traffic that resulted in its surface wearing out quickly and it became notorious for its ruts and potholes.  .
  In 1793 construction began on the Grand Junction Canal, a major project to provide a freight waterway between the Midlands and the Port of London. In 1798, the canal from the Thames reached Two Waters, just south of Hemel Hempstead, and opened fully in 1805.
  Hemel's position on the commercial transport network was established further in 1837 when the route of the new London and Birmingham Railway reached the town. The line's construction had been delayed for several years by vigorous lobbying by a number of powerful local landowners, including Sir Astley Cooper of Gadebridge House, who were all keen to protect their estates from invasion by the "iron horse". Their campaign was successful and the main line was routed along the River Bulbourne instead of the River Gade, skirting around the edge of Hemel Hempstead. As a result, the railway station serving Hemel Hempstead was built one mile outside the town centre at Boxmoor; Boxmoor and Hemel Hempstead railway station (today's Hemel Hempstead railway station) opened in 1837. The railways continued to expand and in 1877 a new route opened connecting Boxmoor to the Midland Railway at Harpenden. The Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead branch railway — affectionately known as the Nickey Line — crossed the town centre on a long, curved viaduct, eventually serving three local stations in the town at Heath Park Halt,  Hemel Hempsted (Midland) and Godwin's Halt.
  Despite the incursion of various forms of transport, Hemel remained principally an agricultural market town throughout the 19th century. In the last decades of that century development of houses and villas for London commuters began. Hemel steadily expanded, but only became a borough on 13 July 1898.
  During the Second World War ninety high explosive bombs were dropped on the town by the Luftwaffe. The most notorious incident was on 10 May 1942 when a stick of bombs demolished houses at Nash Mills killing eight people. The nearby Dickinson factories which were used to produce munitions, were the target.
caption: Gadebridge House (demolished 1963)
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